Hmm...
For £300 we have room to play...
I would suggest an X-Fi Titanium with A Harmon Kardon AVR155 reciever (£250) and then get a set of stereo bookshelf speakers from a 2nd hand Hi-Fi shop. It will take you a bit over budget and you may want to upgrade the speakers when you've saved a bit more.
For that you get an X-Fi with DDL / DTS connect and a Dolby Headphone capable receiver that is reputably pretty good for music and can be upgraded to 5.1 speakers.
Just a few notes of caution - I haven't heard the AVR155 authough reviews indicate it sounds good when set up properly. It only does 5.1 not 7.1 and won't do lossless blu-ray audio if you're thinking of going down that route. HDMI ports are video only.
Backup suggestions would be drop the reciever and go for something like the Aego Ms. If you wanted Dolby Headphone you could get a JVC/Victor SU-DH1 or an A40 mixamp (gaming on CMSS-Headphone is perfectly adequate but for movies/music I would always go for Dolby). Better quality X-Fis like the Forte could be considered if you'll be plugging headphones into it directly rather than a reciever.
An alternative soundcard suggestion would be something from the Xonar series. That Essence ST looks tasty and has Dolby Headphone and a headphone amp onboard (as does the STX). Not quite as good as an X-Fi for gaming though.
If you haven't done so already you might want to look up modding those PC350s on head-fi.
For £300 we have room to play...
I would suggest an X-Fi Titanium with A Harmon Kardon AVR155 reciever (£250) and then get a set of stereo bookshelf speakers from a 2nd hand Hi-Fi shop. It will take you a bit over budget and you may want to upgrade the speakers when you've saved a bit more.
For that you get an X-Fi with DDL / DTS connect and a Dolby Headphone capable receiver that is reputably pretty good for music and can be upgraded to 5.1 speakers.
Just a few notes of caution - I haven't heard the AVR155 authough reviews indicate it sounds good when set up properly. It only does 5.1 not 7.1 and won't do lossless blu-ray audio if you're thinking of going down that route. HDMI ports are video only.
Backup suggestions would be drop the reciever and go for something like the Aego Ms. If you wanted Dolby Headphone you could get a JVC/Victor SU-DH1 or an A40 mixamp (gaming on CMSS-Headphone is perfectly adequate but for movies/music I would always go for Dolby). Better quality X-Fis like the Forte could be considered if you'll be plugging headphones into it directly rather than a reciever.
An alternative soundcard suggestion would be something from the Xonar series. That Essence ST looks tasty and has Dolby Headphone and a headphone amp onboard (as does the STX). Not quite as good as an X-Fi for gaming though.
If you haven't done so already you might want to look up modding those PC350s on head-fi.
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